Content
by Forget-Me-Not Writing
Summary: In which Avatar Aang explains to Toph about contentment and how he's not what the waterbender needs anymore. Post-war. (possibly AU).


**Author's Note: So this is my very first fanfiction, ever! I hope you guys enjoy it. Please leave a review. :)**

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He stands at the entrance to the gardens, neither fully inside the regally magnificent Fire Nation palace, nor outside in the floral atmosphere of nature. He says nothing, and was quiet upon entering so the pair beside the pond doesn't notice him. Leaning against the grand pillar in the open door frame, he crosses his orange robed arms in front of himself; the smallest of smiles graces his young face.

"Let me get this straight," pipes up a voice behind him. He's surprised to learn someone was behind him, but not surprised the person who did the sneaking up could do it; she was very silent if she felt the need to be.

The two at the pond don't hear her voice.

"Yes?" he answers, intrigued at her inquisitiveness.

"You meet her after you're frozen for a hundred years and she's the first person to believe in you," she begins touching her pointer finger.

"Yes," he replies dragging out the confirmation word, unsure of where this was going.

"You, her, and Snoozles travel all over the world for months and months, for _you_," she stresses the word _you_ as she points to her second finger, as if listing. He nods knowing she knows he was listening and could sense his movements. "She leaves all that she knows and loves to get you to the North Pole to master waterbending, she teaches waterbending to you, and she helps you find other teachers to help you learn elements. You try to impress her multiple times, you make her a necklace when she lost hers, she defends you to no end about this entire hope thing you bring to people, she mothers you, she saved you with spirit water, and she accepted you.

"Yes," he says registering all that the girl states is entirely too true.

"You guys kiss to escape a cave about some lovers or whatever –ah, don't interrupt-" she says when she hears him begin to inhale a small breath to correct her. "What else to do you think Sugar Queen and I talked about on our girl's day in Ba Sing Se?

"Anyway, you kiss her multiple times after that, you kiss after we ended this dumb war!" she exasperates, completely losing him in the process of why she was telling him all this. "She tells you she's confused and doesn't want a relationship with the war going on. You _end_ the war, kiss her again, and you guys become an item. You two have all of this _history_. You obviously love her, I can tell from your heart beats, even now you still do."

"Yes," confirms he, head slightly heavy from all the nodding at all the events the blind master earthbender listed off on her short, partly dirty, fingers.

"And," she draws in a huge breath rivaling any Airbender gusts. Her normal confident tone lowers –almost as if in defeat- to a confused one as her shoulders droop and her fingers leave their position where she was counting upon them to fall at her side. "You let her go."

"Yes."

"But… you want her," she says quietly.

"Yes," he whispers, looking at the elegant flooring they stand on.

"And she seemed content with you."

"She was happy with me, yes," he said, eyes focusing on the two at the pond's edge –still entirely unaware of the conversation occurring behind them a few hundred feet away. "But not content. Content is being fully satisfied with what one has; not craving anything else; completely happy. She was happy with me, but I could tell from how Zuko looked at her and she at him, how they talked with one another, how _they_ have so much _history_, and how they simply _just are_ with one another that she would never be content with me. Only _he_ could give her that, because no matter how much she'll deny it, she needs him and he her. They maybe don't realize it, but they're each other's contentment," he states looking back at the small but fierce girl beside him.

"So you broke up with her, broke her heart, took away the friendship that was strong enough to end the war, because he was better for her than you were," she puzzles.

"Yeahhhh," he said lowly –not bitterly- as his gaze centered at the descending sun which set the sky afire to a purple and pink harmonious mixture.

"But I don't think I ripped away our friendship," he continues after a few silent moments. "I think we'll go back to being how we were. It'll take me some time to get used to the idea of her being just my friend again, but she never stopped being that, even when we were together. It's better this way."

"But what's better for you," she uncharacteristically asks in curiosity and concern.

"Right now, it's best for me to be her friend. She's content being my friend. She may feel like it's over and she'll never love again –if she felt that deeply about me in the first place- but she'll soon realize what I realized on the pier after they got back from her 'Zuko field trip'."

"They why'd you continue to kiss her if you knew she was starting to see Sparky differently?"

"I think I was trying to preserve what I hoped could come of us, but I know now that I'm not what makes her content. I'm content if she is, even if means…" he looks at the couple. "…her being with him.

"And besides," he shifts his tone to a more optimistic one, "I have this new, young Fire Lord who has this bright idea of an era of peace and love, I think I'll help him with that," he says lightly with a small smile, but still traces of sadness lingering in his grey gaze. The earthbender didn't need her keen seismic sense to know the conversation was over. She lightly socks the last airbender in the shoulder with a grin and leaves the open doorway between the palace and gardens.

The two by the pond haven't been disturbed between his and the earthbender's conversation about them. The girl with long dark hair leans her head on his shoulder. He naturally wraps an arm protectively around her, swiping at the glistening tear lying on her tanned cheek.

The Avatar feels a pang hit him, knowing he was the cause of the tear and the disappointed with the thought that he couldn't be the one to comfort and protect her. But it wasn't his place to fill that comforting-protective void she once had her father as, then her brother, then he as her best friend.

Now it was the firebender's turn to provide what she needs as a comforter and protector.

They were content with each other, the Southern Water Tribe chief's daughter trained master waterbender and healer content with the firebending swordsman turned Fire Lord. And he, the Avatar, was content with that.

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**A/N: Please leave a review and let me know what you thought about my first fanfiction! Have a great day and God bless :) **


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